This invention relates to a generally rectangularly-shaped gas or electric water heater.
Conventional hot water heaters typically used in residential and commercial applications are cylindrical in shape and are installed upright. In residential applications, the water heater is often installed in a basement, crawl space, garage, attic, etc., or, may be installed in an interior room, closet, utility room, or the like. Cabinet-style hot water heaters are also known which have a box-shaped exterior configuration and which can be placed in the kitchen, laundry room, etc., or other areas within a home.
A limitation arises with conventional cylindrical hot water heaters in that because of their height requirement, installation of such hot water heaters in crawl spaces beneath homes can be problematic. There are certain types of cylindrical hot water heaters known as "low boy" heaters, which are shorter and of larger diameter for installation in crawl spaces, while still providing adequate hot water capacity, but an additional limitation arises in that such styles of hot water heaters cannot be so wide that they will not fit through the standard crawl space access opening, i.e., the width of the hot water heater is limited to the width of the crawl space opening.
Because of the size constraint for such low boy style heaters, if additional hot water heating capacity is desired, for example for use in connection with spas, whirlpool baths, etc., then one or more additional low boy type water heaters will be required. This may also require additional electrical service lines to be run, additional circuit breakers, etc., which can result in additional expense.
A particular problem arises with gas-fired hot water heaters. Because of the venting and height requirements of gas-fired hot water heaters, they typically cannot be used for crawl space applications.
Another problem with conventional cylindrical hot water heaters, both electric and gas-fired, are the space requirements necessitated by their cylindrical shape. As such, they do not lend themselves to being placed into a corner of a structure, and thereby provide for a less than optimal use of space. Finally, cylindrical hot water heaters typically do not generally lend themselves to being installed horizontally, such as above or from the ceiling system, floor joist system, etc.
Various hot water heater designs have been patented. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,464, issued to Cloutier, discloses a hot water heating device for use with a closed circuit central heating system. The device includes a cylindrical barrel having heating elements and T-shaped nozzles for providing circulation and distribution of liquid about the heating elements. U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,612, issued to Sprague, discloses a hot water heater for placement in the wall, as also does U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,908, issued to Williamson. U.S. Pat. No. 1,357,019, issued to Alexander, et al., discloses a hot water heater having electric heating coils which are used for various heater configurations.
While the foregoing designs are known, there still exists a need for a hot water heater which is of a low profile design having a large hot water volume capacity and which can be disposed horizontally.